Report: iOS 5 Will Get Speech-to-Text Controls

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When you download iOS 5 to your iPhone, your phone might get voice controls. According to 9to5Mac, Apple will include speech-to-text functionality powered by Nuance in iOS 5.

Citing screenshots delivered by a "reliable source," 9to5Mac says the new feature is fairly simple. In the messaging app, a microphone icon will be included on the keyboard next to the space bar. Click the mic button, start speaking, and the text will appear in the text message field.

Because the feature is allegedly in beta testing, when it appears in iOS 5 this fall, it could be slightly different, 9to5Mac notes.

Speech-to-text will reportedly be available for the iPhone and iPod touch, but it might not be supported on the iPad until later.

But Apple could step up voice controls with the iPhone 5. It's been rumored that the fifth-gen iPhone will have fully-integrated voice control with a feature called Assistant. This feature would take information stored on your phone like location data, iCal info, contacts, and music metadata to help it satisfy verbal requests. It would also be able to talk back to you. However, Assistant, which is said to be powered by a voice control app called Siri that Apple acquired last year, has yet to pop up in the developer beta of iOS 5.

Apple released the fifth developer beta of iOS 5 this weekend, just two weeks after it seeded iOS 5 Beta 4 to devs.

Leslie Horn joined the PCMag team as a news reporter in the fall of 2010. She covers a wide range of topics from digital media to the latest Apple rumor. After graduating with a degree in Magazine Journalism from the University of Missouri, she wrote for Out & About, a travel guide in coastal Maine. One of her favorite reporting experiences was covering the 2008 Olympics from Beijing. She travels every chance she gets, and recently spent time backpacking along the coast of Brazil. Though she...
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